Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly said that the website for making IDNYC appointments was written only in English.

New York City’s Department of Social Services canceled all walk-in appointments to get IDNYCs after migrants queued up in long lines, in some instances waiting overnight in frigid temperatures for a card that doesn’t do what many applicants think it will.

An email message went out from DSS’s Office of Community Outreach Friday evening announcing the change, which it also promoted on social media. By Monday, people trying to apply for the IDNYC who did not have a pre-scheduled appointment were being turned away. 

At the DSS office in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, security guards gestured to a QR code that applicants could scan to try to secure an appointment online. 

As of Tuesday afternoon, the website that code linked to reported that there were “No Appointment Slots found.” 

Neha Sharma, a spokesperson for DSS, said the switch to an online-only appointment system aims to “maximize efficiencies, and ensure the health and safety of New Yorkers, including recently arrived asylum seekers, by discouraging people from lining up outside centers in cold weather.”

Sharma said new appointments are released each week on Fridays and quickly book up due to overwhelming demand, though that’s not mentioned in the online form.

Attempts by a reporter Tuesday to secure an online appointment at any of the city’s 10 enrollment centers through the online portal were unsuccessful. The online portal doesn’t allow applicants to see available appointments, but requires first selecting a borough or specific enrollment center, time and date, going through mid-March. 

Doing so for various times and sites yielded no available appointments.

Alpha Amadou, a recent migrant from Guinea who now helps others sign up for the city identification at the nonprofit Afrikana in Harlem, worried the change presents yet another hurdle for new arrivals. While the online portal for appointments can be translated into an array of languages, just figuring out to how get to the translated page is a complicated process.

“It’s going to be more difficult,” he said.

The switch came in the aftermath of reports in the New York Times and ABC7 about lines of people waiting overnight to get into the Boerum Hill enrollment office.

One employee at the office, who asked that their name not be published since they are not authorized to speak to reporters, said more than 200 people had snaked around the block each night for weeks, with some laying down cardboard boxes and even setting up tents for warmth. 

The New York Times reported some people lined up overnight erroneously thought the card would help them get treatment at a hospital or that they needed one to get a work permit.

The city was also working to dispel misinformation about the ID, said Sharma, including “the fact that IDNYC does not provide work authorization or impact immigration status.”

The employee said they often encounter people confused about what the ID can be used for.

“The message they hear is more like, ‘You need this to succeed here,” said the employee.

‘We Get Here and They Tell Us No’

The IDNYC card was first rolled out in 2015 under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said it would help undocumented immigrants come out of the shadows to “lead fuller lives, better lives, lives full of respect and recognition.” 

The cards, which come with museum and other discounts to broaden their appeal, can be used instead of passports for some day-to-day business and allow people without other IDs to open accounts at certain banks.

The city saw a 50% percent surge in cards issued in 2023 over 2022, to 122,238, the New York Post reported. That jump followed an increase in migrants traveling to New York from the southern U.S. border.

Lifelong Boerum Hill resident Dalia Morales, 50, said the situation on her block had become untenable, with hundreds waiting outside for hours, sometimes having to relieve themselves in tree pits across from a school. 

On a particularly cold night she’d brought out warm clothes for people waiting and taken to complaining to 311 and the local police precinct about the situation.

“What is going on that it’s that slow in there?” she wondered. “It’s tough for them. It’s sad. It’s just a lot.”

On Tuesday morning, as word spread on the second day of the new policy of online-only appointments, about two dozen recent arrivals who hadn’t heard about the change were turned away from the enrollment office by security guards at the door. At least one arriving migrant left saying he didn’t have a phone to scan the QR code. 

Those turned away from the Boerum Hill enrollment site on Tuesday expressed confusion and frustration. 

“We called 311 and they told us to come here, and now we get here and they tell us no,” said 25-year-old Isabel Patiño in Spanish, who was accompanying her parents to try to get the IDNYC. The couple had arrived in New York City about six months ago from Ecuador. 

A 311 operator had told her there were no available appointments until March, she said. 

“There are no appointments anywhere,” she said. “We’re going to Queens to see if we can find another appointment.”